Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present. This report of the National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee concludes that the evidence for a changing climate has strengthened considerably since the last National Climate Assessment report, written in 2009. Many more impacts of human-caused climate change have now been observed. Corn producers in Iowa, oyster growers in Washington State, and maple syrup producers in Vermont have observed changes in their local climate that are outside of their experience. So, too, have coastal planners from Florida to Maine, water managers in the arid Southwest and parts of the Southeast, and Native Americans on tribal lands across the nation.

Americans are noticing changes all around them. Summers are longer and hotter, and periods of extreme heat last longer than any living American has ever experienced. Winters are generally shorter and warmer. Rain comes in heavier downpours, though in many regions there are longer dry spells in between.

Other changes are even more dramatic. Residents of some coastal cities see their streets flood more regularly during storms and high tides. Inland cities near large rivers also experience more flooding, especially in the Midwest and Northeast. Hotter and drier weather and earlier snow melt mean that wildfires in the West start earlier in the year, last later into the fall, threaten more homes, cause more evacuations, and burn more acreage. In Alaska, the summer sea ice that once protected the coasts has receded, and fall storms now cause more erosion and damage that is severe enough that some communities are already facing relocation.

Scientists studying climate change confirm that these observations are consistent with Earth’s climatic trends. Long-term, independent records from weather stations, satellites, ocean buoys, tide gauges, and many other data sources all confirm the fact that our nation, like the rest of the world, is warming, precipitation patterns are changing, sea level is rising, and some types of extreme weather events are increasing. These and other observed climatic changes are having wide-ranging impacts in every region of our country and most sectors of our economy.

(NCADAC Report, Jan. 2013, page 1, lines 1-27, emphasis added). It is official that the economic impacts the report mentions clearly indicate that we can't afford not to change our practices of damaging the Global Climate System any longer.

Other previous Dredd Blog posts have reiterated that not only money is involved, but the lives of more than a hundred million men, women, and children are also in grave danger:

More than 100 million people will die ... by 2030 if the world fails to tackle climate change, a report commissioned by 20 governments said on Wednesday.

As global average temperatures rise due to greenhouse gas emissions, the effects on the planet, such as melting ice caps, extreme weather, drought and rising sea levels, will threaten populations and livelihoods, said the report conducted by humanitarian organisation DARA.

It calculated that five million deaths occur each year from air pollution, hunger and disease as a result of climate change and carbon-intensive economies, and that toll would likely rise to six million a year by 2030 if current patterns of fossil fuel use continue.

More than 90 percent of those deaths will occur in developing countries, said the report that calculated the human and economic impact of climate change on 184 countries in 2010 and 2030. It was commissioned by the Climate Vulnerable Forum, a partnership of 20 developing countries threatened by climate change.

"A combined climate-carbon crisis is estimated to claim 100 million lives between now and the end of the next decade," the report said.

The Davos World Economic Forum is just over. The response of our world business and commerce leaders to World Climate Change was not just disappointing but hugely underwhelming. In another venue, i wrote:

"I am VERY disappointed in WEF43.

There is no real mention of World Climate Change, and the realities we will be facing in the next two decades:

2)We are on the edge of permafrost melt, therefore a multi gigaton release of methane, a greenhouse gas 30 times more potent than CO2. Greatly accelerated temperature rise ...

3)Last summer in Australia promises to be a harbinger of other hot dry regions of our planet .. creating temperatures between 110F and 125F. The American southwest north thru Kansas, a greatly expanded Sahara, southern Europe ….. Highways and railroads are built for lower temperatures and buckle disastrously at these higher temperatures.

4)We have used up or almost used up the worlds supplies of stored fresh water, including under Egypt, our own Ogalala aquifer, Himalayan glaciers which feed India's rivers, etc.

Just these few will make huge changes in business and commerce. I feel we are on the Niagara, half a mile above the falls and the Jamie Dimons, Koch Bros, etc. are singing: “Nothin's gonna change my world, nothin's gonna change my world”, over and over until it's too late.

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